Post Mortem
Written Directed By: Pablo
Larraín
Starring: Alfredo
Castro, Antonia Zegers, Amparo Noguera, and Jaime Vadell
Director of Photography: Sergio Armstrong, Editor: Andrea
Chingnoli, Production Designer: Polin Garbizu, Original Music: Joan Cristobal
Meza
The first
few sequences of Post Mortem from
Chilean director Pablo Larraín immediately invite us into a cryptic world that
controls us from the opening shot. We follow Mario, a middle-aged, very quiet and
very repressed man, as he stands inside his home. Looking out his window, he
spies on his neighbor, a beautiful woman with a boisterous and revealing
posture. He follows her to a burlesque show, and then down into the lair
underneath the stage to where she lays, where he overhears some dialogue that
suggests she may also be a prostitute. He asks if he can drive her home, which
she accepts. Why does he do this? Larraín’s camera remains almost still, with
composed and exacting shots that keep us focused without revealing any sort of
inner detail.
In many
ways, I wished that the rest of Post
Mortem would then fill in those details, which ends up being a very puzzling
film that mixes the psychological and political. I missed Larraín’s first film,
Tony Manero, which followed a killer
who dressed up as the Travolta character from Saturday Night Fever. And Post
Mortem has a lot to say about Chilean psychology and history, though
perhaps it is more aimed at audiences who know more about the uprising that led
to Pinochet’s violent and brutal dictatorship. But for audiences (like myself)
who go in blind, Larraín certainly has a very unique voice that makes Post Mortem still an interesting look
into this confusing and devastating world.
